


Little Wishes

by occasional_boy_reporter



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Ahamkara shenanigans, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occasional_boy_reporter/pseuds/occasional_boy_reporter
Summary: Zavala and Shaxx hunt an Ahamkara and their unresolved romantic tension comes back to bite them. Pretty literally.
Relationships: Shaxx/Zavala (Destiny)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	Little Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> We really deserve way more content with younger Shaxx and Zavala.
> 
> This may become a two-parter...will probably become a two-parter
> 
> Yes it did feel weird to write 'Lord Shaxx' this many times but I think it's more fun if Zavala has a crush on senpai and uses his full title.

The fine hairs on the back of Zavala’s neck rise in response to something the Awoken man cannot quite pinpoint. He scans the edges of the canyon towering high above them but discovers no movement. He jolts- a hurried half step to put him within distance- and places a halting hand to the armored bicep ahead of him as he whispers.

“Wait!”

With the gentle creak of leather suit and clack of twisting metal, Lord Shaxx turns to regard Zavala with a scuffed and dirty helm, two horns hardly shining in the late Venus sun.

“What is it?”

Zavala clamps his lips until he feels the strain in his jaw. Lord Shaxx waits patiently for just a second or two before he’s already shifting his weight and curling his fingers- eager to get on with their task. Zavala feels pressured to admit, “I...don’t know.”

“Are you frightened?”

Lord Shaxx doesn’t ask unkindly but Zavala still finds some small embarrassment in the fact that Lord Shaxx  _ can _ ask such a question when they’re already on the third day of a hunt. Zavala is not the same as the half-starved, wide-eyed man who limped into the camp beneath the Traveler all those years ago. And even though they have lived and struggled and trained and died and lived again in each other’s orbit, Zavala sometimes senses Lord Shaxx...is a little softer with him than with Saladin or any of the other Risen they associate with. Almost as if he is coddling Zavala. If one could accuse the former Warlord capable of such a thing. It often leaves Zavala feeling restless, uncertain how to prove himself to Lord Shaxx when their mentor already judges their combat skills so nearly matched.

“No,” Zavala finally murmurs, tips of his ears threatening to turn pink, and readjusts his grip on his well-worn halberd, “I’m not afraid.”

"No? I would not think less of you if you were."

Absolutely coddling.

"I'm not," Zavala asserts, ears now set burning by the sincerity of Lord Shaxx's statement.

"Mm. You are quite capable with a weapon," Lord Shaxx chuckles as he runs a finger playfully through the fringe of red scraps that hangs below the sharp head of Zavala's halberd before tilting his head and leaning slightly downward as if to whisper a grave truth straight to the Awoken's face, "but I would not blame you for being afraid seeing how we are hunting an Ahamkara and you are snack-sized."

Zavala's belly burns in something adjacent to embarrassment- something with a more pleasant edge. There are few people Lord Shaxx would consider teasing so insistently.

"Not every tree need be a sequoia when even an apple tree can provide shade," Zavala retorts as he wills the excess blood from his face.

Lord Shaxx takes the barb with excellent humor and his laughter bounces off the rust-red and black layered walls around them.

“A point well made! Then we’re off, my little apple tree!”

The endearment makes Zavala heat all over again.

Oblivious to Zavala's discomfort, Lord Shaxx gestures grandly to the gap ahead. “Wei Fong swears he has witnessed the same Ahamkara flying low each evening. We should not dally if we want to catch it before nightfall.”

“If it roosts here, it must shift into another form to do so,” Zavala notes. Lord Shaxx’s fur-clad shoulders brush the rock walls in some places as they progress. It might be impossible for an Ahamkara in a larger, more frightful form to wedge itself into the canyon.

Lord Shaxx hums agreement. "Which is why we shall be ready for any shape of foe."

They've walked very nearly to the end of the canyon before Lord Shaxx's head quirks and he stops. A beat later and Zavala hears it as well. There's a crunching noise, uncomfortably reminiscent of cracking bone, emanating from a shadowed opening in the rock some dozen feet above their heads.

The larger man silently indicates Zavala and adds a gesture that says 'stay here' before he taps his own chest and gestures up the cliff face before hooking his double-headed ax along his back and finding his first handhold in the rock. Zavala frowns but readies his halberd in case Lord Shaxx stirs up something unfriendly in the dark recess above.

Of course, the man makes the vertical climb look like a child's game. In the space of a few thundering beats of Zavala's heart, Lord Shaxx is only one great heave from the mouth of the cave.

Trained as he is on his hunting partner, Zavala almost misses the movement high above and beyond the man.

He only manages the barest of warning shouts before a thick tail cracks into the sheer canyon face and sends man-sized chunks of rock raining down on the two Risen below.

He reaches for the well inside him and hauls power to the surface. Void Light encompasses him at the last possible second. The first of the pebbles to have slipped through clatter at Zavala's feet as great slabs pummel his shield overhead. He cannot see Lord Shaxx. He cannot see anything. There is nothing but the shimmer of Void and the darkness of suspended rock all around. The weight slowly weakens the integrity of Zavala's saving bubble until he feels the strain in his arms, back, and chest as if the entire mountain lies directly on his shoulders. 

He huffs and puffs his way through a few vain seconds as he thinks he can expand his power and shrug off the pile but he is still training in this secondary element and he quickly admits he does not possess the strength he needs for an impressive upheaval.

Instead, he wraps the bubble tighter around himself and let's the mountain fall where it may.

Only when the world stops shifting, does Zavala dare to push and wiggle his way out of the pile.

He breaks the surface of rubble and scans the sky first. There is nothing he can see beyond the thinning dust high above. Not so much as that tail hanging over the cliff lip. Zavala hardly thinks an Ahamkara would cut and run after a singular attack so, even as he carefully slides back to level ground, he keeps his eyes constantly sweeping. Halberd unbroken, Zavala brings it into defensive position and hisses past the dust still settling like a muddy shroud.

"Lord Shaxx?"

There is no response. 

Zavala swallows and coughs when the atmosphere sits too heavily on the back of his tongue.

"Lord Shaxx!"

Nothing responds to his whispered worry.

He can vaguely make out the dark spot of the cave above but it there is no sign of the man who had been scaling the rock just moments ago.

Now, he is afraid. He watches the sky for wings and the lip of the ravine for further accidents.

A rumbling begins at his back- like the soft growl of a beast. Halberd first, Zavala whirls to find two great horns taking shape against the dust cloud. They are of a familiar size and curve. He swallows down his heart when it surges up in relief and threatens to choke him.

"Lord Shaxx. Thank the Light."

The man sways closer and instinct sends Zavala to his side just in time to keep Lord Shaxx from crashing to the ground.

"Are you alright?" Even as he grunts the question- body straining under the weight of Lord Shaxx drooping against his side- Zavala can see the reason for the tumble. The larger man's leg is twisted in an unnatural series of turns. Could he have fallen during the rockslide? Logic says he must have but how Shaxx came crashing down so far away from the little cave overhead seems odd.

"Did you jump?"

"I'm injured," Shaxx says simply.

"Your Ghost-"

"No. Not here. We should move away. Hide."

Zavala's mouth hesitates- shapes around the word but cannot give it breath. He has never heard Lord Shaxx make such a suggestion. The man must be far more injured than immediately visible. He looks again to the sky as if an Ahamkara might swoop down on them any second. There is nothing to see but that does not mean it will not happen soon. "Alright. I have you."

They quickly limp their way forward until they put the rubble behind them. Not long after, Lord Shaxx tilts his weight to stear Zavala toward a bend in the canyon. Around the jut is a series of large rock formations that offer a plethora of spots to hide from overhead view.

Lord Shaxx sits heavily, dragging Zavala down with him, until they both plop onto the ground in twin puffs of dust.

"Let me see your wound."

Zavala blinks, confounded. " _My_ wound?"

The Awoken's hands hover just shy of Lord Shaxx's mangled leg- the injury Zavala was ready to examine. Lord Shaxx raises his own broad hand to Zavala's head and, when his fingers trace the space above Zavala's left ear, Zavala hisses at the pain that flashes across his skin. Shaxx offers two bloodied fingertips to illustrate the cut Zavala did not know he was sporting. Perhaps more than pebbles had slipped through his protective bubble.

"I know my leg is broken," Lord Shaxx huffs. "But you could pass out if this is as bad as it looks. Let me tend to you."

Maybe the man is right. Zavala is feeling a bit light-headed now that he isn't focussed on moving his hunting companion. Still, Zavala's floating gaze flits warily to the sky above.

"We should bring out our Ghosts before-"

Lord Shaxx wraps a hand around Zavala's shoulder and turns him back around.

"Look at me."

Zavala does. Though the back of his neck has begun to prickle again. "The Ahamkara-"

"Likely thinks we are dead. Probably sifting through the rubble looking for our meat. Be still." 

Lord Shaxx does not give warning before scooping Zavala beneath the thighs and settling the Awoken man closer- directly atop Lord Shaxx's outstretched legs, just above the knee. Zavala comprehends the change too slowly to protest beyond the belated whimper as he is jostled. His head is turned in large hands and everything swims as if he carries a cup of water between his ears. Zavala abandons his halberd and reaches out instead to stabilize himself against the imbalance and the strike of nausea that follows. Lord Shaxx allows the smaller hands on his chest as he tips Zavala's head down in further examination.

It is an inconvenient time for Zavala's fingers to twitch and his skin to heat but as he floats between Shaxx's wide palms and feels the firm plane of muscle beneath him, Zavala cannot hope to control the rapid patter of his heart. Lord Shaxx is touching him, carefully, firmly. 

“Unfortunate that there will be no wishes today.”

Zavala would startle if he weren't so addled. As it is, he blinks slowly.

"Wishes?" The word is almost lost in his confusion.

The fingers that had been so intently smoothing over his temple and crown trace the shell of his ear and along his jaw until they settle to hold Zavala's chin. The effect is hypnotic even though it spreads the smell of blood closer to his face.

“What would you wish for?”

Zavala withdraws- leaning back by agonizing centimeters as the tingle in the back of his neck competes with the sloshing in his head. Lord Shaxx lets him go but not too far before one hand circles above the Awoken's elbow and the other drifts up to toy with the latches of his own helmet.

Lord Shaxx has always dismissed wishes. His complete disdain for an objective achieved without struggle is one of the reasons he is sent out as a senior guide on these hunts over and over again. To speak of wishes in such a casual way...

Lord Shaxx removes his helmet. The sun paints stark highlights across midnight deep skin. A wish solidifies in Zavala. 

The elder man leans forward and offers his lips. Zavala welcomes him. A first and a second time. A third and a fourth. Until he loses count and his body shakes with the effort to be still, to neither collapse or reach for more in case it all might fall away.

Zavala lets the man push him down. It’s not unfamiliar to have his senior Risen over him while sparring but Lord Shaxx does what Zavala has always wished in the back of his head, pushing him firmly, grinding against him from head to toe.

"A little wish," Lord Shaxx chuckles against slick lips. "This is such a simple thing, oh lover mi-"

“Zavala!”

He jerks beneath warm weight, eyes flying open as lips abandon his and a snarl grows to a roar above him. Lord Shaxx’s face morphs, elongates, fills with teeth like knives. 

Zavala gets an arm up in time to catch the fangs that snap for his face. Armor, cloth, and flesh tear when a body wrapped in steel crashes into the rippling man above.

The sound of Zavala's throaty shout is lost immediately to twin battle cries and the collosal thud of two bodies crashing against the nearest rock formation. The smaller of the two figures is covered in dirt and his scarf is shredded, furred shoulder hanging by a thin stretch and swaying wildly with each grapple, armor dented as if he had been caught completely beneath the falling canyon wall and still managed to emerge. Blue and red pennants flutter from twin waists and two metal cuirasses bang together until one of them erupts into a wave of shifting scales.

Lord Shaxx, the real Lord Shaxx, tackles the transforming Ahamkara and drops two mighty fists across its horrific half-human face as it screams in fury.

For a frozen breath, Zavala is simply stunned by the reality of the last several minutes. Finally, he swallows his thundering heart and scrambles for the weapon he knows is nearby somewhere.

The Ahamkara continues to grow while Lord Shaxx wrestles it until the beast is too large to be contained even by Shaxx's grand span. A sprouting claw tears into Lord Shaxx's previously whole calf and the man staggers even as a punch sends the still-forming face of the Ahamkara reeling on a stretching neck. A second fully-formed set of claws strikes out and Lord Shaxx manages to turn the blow aside even though his boots dig trenches in the dirt as he braces against the shock of powerful limbs.

As it rallies with a violent twist of its neck and tries to bite down on one of Lord Shaxx's arms, a sharp spike sinks into the roof of the Ahamkara's mouth. Zavala stands his ground, leaning into the piercing thrust of his halberds tip. Zavala almost loses his weapon entirely when the creature rears back in pain. He manages to hold on long enough for the halberd to wrench free and the bloody tip is back in position in time to meet the next strike.

The reach his bladed staff provides makes the battle easier but the pounding of Zavala's head catches up to him like waves catching up to the shore and he fails to counter the great swinging tail that tosses him into the pillar of stone standing a dozen feet behind him. 

Something cracks. It is unclear if it is the stone or Zavala's back.

It is more serendipitous fall than executed motion that brings the Awoken's halberd back into position long enough to force the Ahamkara to change its direction of follow-up attack. Just long enough for Lord Shaxx to tear the ax from his back and bring it down directly through a scaley neck.

The Ahamkara's head falls to the dirt at Zavala's feet, spraying the space with thick spurts of gel that burst into green flame upon contact with the elements. 

Zavala breathes heavily- the wheeze evidence of at least a cracked rib- and although he knows the beast must be dead, he swears he witnesses a multi-directional maw flutter. 

"Zavala."

The Awoken shrinks away from the hand that reaches for him. Lord Shaxx pauses, helmet canted in worry, but he does not press on.

"I'm sorry I was delayed. I was caught by the stones and when I emerged, there was a beast waiting for me."

"Another? A pair?" Zavala's breath rattles.

Lord Shaxx nods. "Rare. I know. Wei Fong was only half right. The beast who fought me was small and easy enough to dispose of. However, I wasted time trying to dig you out of the rubble. I should have known you were more clever than that."

Zavala cannot keep his eyes from drifting to the lump of flesh on the ground.

"This one proved to be much more troublesome than the other," Lord Shaxx murmurs as he also observes the severed head. "Based on its size, I would say it was no stranger to granting wishes. It's good that I arrived before it could bother you with temptation."

"I'm," Zavala swallows past a threat of sickness, "glad you could come in time."

This time Zavala allows the hand to cautiously cup his shoulder in a friendly comfort.

"I'm sure that if I had not come, you would have vanquished it yourself, little tree."

"Maybe," Zavala sags and trembles and pretends it is only a result of his injuries as he lets Lord Shaxx guide him away from the fallen Ahamkara. The wind carries a hissing derision that follows them through the canyon and sounds like a single word in the Awoken's ears.

_'Pitiful.'_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *Sobs* I'm so sorry to the reader whose comment I accidentally deleted from the fic instead of my inbox! I value and appreciate you and I'm sorry I have betrayed you in this way!!!


End file.
